mat (04/20/83)
In today's society, military affairs have potentially frightening consequences. A large number of articles on military (and pacifist) affairs have appeared in Scientific American in the past couple of years, and with the Falklands Islands military action just a little ways behind us, and Cuba south of us, and Marxist--backed wars in South America, as well as a pair of potentially hostile superpowers in Asia, there may be a load of folks concerned about military activities. How many would like to see a net.military? I don't want to start a campaign for net.pacifism; that subject seems to get covered on net.politics; and one hopes that some of less radical discussions for REAL efforts toward peace might also find their way onto net.miliary. (Before anyone decides that I am a hawk, let me point out that I subscribe to both Aviation Week & Space Technology and The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. I am neither a hawk nor a dove. I am just SCARED.) With luck, we might AVOID attracting the folk who keep bayonets in the medicine chest to pick their teeth with; we probably don't want any discussions of how to build terrorist bombs, and leaks of classified material would have to be avoided. (Of course, some specs on military hardware have become common folklore. As long as we note that it IS folklore, we may be able to speak about it.) I would also hope that net.military would be a place where serious discussions on tactical and strategic issues, military history, interesting battles, and the like might get discussed; besides these topics, there are the dicussions on how to make strategic weaponry STABILIZING instead of DEstabilizing, and reports on military technology (as much as is leaglly available to the public!) that could get started. I am turning this idea loose, but unless there is VERY heavy support, I will not take any action. I will, however, report the results, and if they warrant it, I will get in touch with Mark Horton, as well as some of the people who send out 'rmgroup' messages all of the time. [harpo|npoiv|ariel]!hou5e!mat Mark Terribile Duke of deNet